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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







A RETROSf'ECT 



THE ROUND TOWER 



POMHAM CLUB 

SiDNE-*' fir Rider 



(Cdpyn^rhi r88g) 



PROVIDENCE 
Privately PrwUd Chib Copy 

18S9 



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10 



\^ A RETROSPECT. 



There rests on the eastern shore of the 
Narra^anset a stately building. From it 
a tower ascends, and this tower I ascend, 
an unbidden guest. Standing as it 
does upon a high bluff, it affords a view 
of great scope, not only of the bay, but 
also of the surrounding country. Nest- 
ling at the foot of this hluff lies I/aJ>J>y 
Islet, and contiguous to it Pomham Rock 
and the red light thereon; hence, it was 
the tower of the Pomham Club House 
wherein I stood. In serene silence the 
mind ran back among the forgotten years 
and visions arose of things I might have 
seen had I then stood here. The ciub 
took its name from the rock and the rock 
from the Sachem, but how, or why, or 
when, I do not know. The ancient do- 



4 
minions of Pomham are now within my 
vision ; across the bay southwesterly they 
lie, Showomet then, but now they call it 
Warwick. It was there that Pomham 
dwelt, and of those lands he gave a 
deed to Samuel Gorton in 1642, whereon 
he put his sign manual, an Indian pipe. 
From this tower I might have seen at the 
close of December, 1675, the blazing fires 
of his hundred wigwams, and himself 
and all his people driven to starva- 
tion in the distant woodlands; where a 
little later Pomham fell by an English 
bullet, and with him all his people. 
Harsh things have been said by our 
Rhode Island people of Pomham. Time, 
the great alleviator of all human animos- 
ities, enables us to see Pomham in possi- 
bly a clearer light than those Avho 
were smarting under his vigorous 
blows could hope to possess. To us he 
seems more sinned against than sinning. 
He died in the wild woods like a hero, as 
he was, or, as an ancient chronicler writes 
of him, "he was one of the great 



5 

Sachems of the Narrozviranccls ; if he is 
slain, the glory of that nation is sunk with 
him into the same pit." Another chroni- 
cler writes of him, "he was one of the stout- 
est and most valiant of the Sachems," and 
still another, "he was the most warlike and 
the best soldier of all the Narragansets." 
Shot, as here related^ he withdrew him- 
self into the bush to die. A wandering 
Englishman drew unconsciously near the 
djing chief, who, possessed as he was of 
immense muscular strength, instantly at- 
tacked, and but for assistance, would have 
slain another of his enemies. Thus died 
Pomhani on the 27th of July, 1676, and 
from this tower, his home it was that I 
saw burning two hundred years ago. 

I have thus related how I saw- from the 
tower, the town of Pom ham burned in 
midwinter, December 1675, and the In- 
dians driven to the woods for shelter. In 
these words the reverend chronicler re- 
cords the event: "On the 27th of Decem- 
ber, Captain Prentice was sent into Pom- 
ham's country, when they burnt near 



an hundred wigwams, but found never an 
Indian in any of them." Again I saw a 
lurid flame light the whole of Showomet. 
It was in the following March the out- 
raged Indians came, and left but a single 
house standing in the whole settlement. 
Vengeance thej took, with but a single 
life. In these words the reverend chron- 
icler records the event. "Another party 
of them (the Indians) fell upon Warwick, 
a place bejond Philip's land, towards the 
Narraganset country, where they burned 
down to the ground all but a few houses 
left standing as a monument of their bar- 
barous fury." The reverend chronicler 
had not then made the acquaintance of 
Will Shakespeare, else had he learned 

That we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which being taught return 
To plague the inventor. 

With Pomham the case was different. 
He may not have been familiar with the 
precise language of the great poet. In 
fact, it may be presumed that he was not 



thus familiar, but then the spirit Avas in 
him and he knew 

That even handed justic« 
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice 
To our own lips. 

And he proceeded in his barbaric way 
to give to the -white men, in March, a 
taste of that medicine which the white 
men had administered to him in the pre- 
ceeding December. It was even handed 
justice. 

It was a sorrowful daj for us when 
Thomas Willett died, August 4, 1674. 
Captain Willett, we called him. He was 
among the first purchasers here. His 
name is among the half dozen grantees in 
Massasoits famous deed of 1653. Ou- 
samequin, we then called this Wampa- 
noag Sachem. He dwelt hereawaj at 
Sowames, or Warren, as you now call it. 
Captain Willett came and "took up" land 
just here at the head of Bullock's Cove as 
since you have named it, but we knew it 
as Peebe's Neck. You have changed it 



8 

into Phebe's Neck, but for what good 
reason I cannot now discover. Peebe 
Avas a Sachem of the Wampanoags ; here 
on this neck he lived and ruled his people, 
and here we shot him with a good Eng- 
lish bullet on the first day in Ju! v, 16755 
among the first of King Philip's warriors 
to be "sent to hell," as the Reverend 
Mather might have Avritten it. Peebe, 
moreover, was his own executioner; that 
is, he brought his death upon himself. 
All that we w^anted was the land whereon 
he dwelt, and he should not have resisted 
us. In these degenerate days of civiliza- 
tion, no white man thinks of resisting 
the encroachments of alien citizens upon 
his land. In those emergencies we found 
a material helper in gunpowder. As an 
argument, persuasive in its eftect upon 
the "untutored savage." The least in 
amount properly administered, induced 
sleep to the patient, and he has slept the 
sleep of his fathers' ever since. Well, 
here just to the southward, at the very 
head of Peebe's Neck, Captain Willett 



9 

built his house and here he died, and just 
there, at the head of Bullock's Cove as 
you now call it, we buried him. Peebe 
knew it as Popanomscut. There had 
been trouble with the Dutch at New 
York, and Captain Willett having been 
much in Holland, and being well liked by 
that people, was sent to quiet the quar- 
rels. In this he succeeded, for he was a 
sagacious and politique man, and so he 
became the first mayor of that city in 
1665. In 1666, he acted as alderman, 
probably for the reason that, at that time 
he was obliged to be more among us 
here at Wannamoiset, but the following 
vear, 1667, he was made mayor of New 
Yoifk ?^gain, thus "twice he did sustain 
the place," just as we cut the words on 
his tombstone, Avhich but for this little 
hill below, you could see from the tower. 
On the top of Captain Willett's house 
the old gentleman had built a "watch 
house." and in this watchhouse he had 
kept a sentinel. Lulled into security, 
or possibly lackinir in that watchful care, 



which so fully possessed the old gentle- 
man, who as I have wintten was now dead, 
this sentinel was one day not at his post. 
An unhappy day indeed it was, for Hez- 
ekiah Willett, the son of his father, "an 
hopeful young gentleman as any in these 
parts," "was betrayed (as the Reverend 
Hubbard writes it) into their cruel hands 
within a quarter of an hour after he went 
out of his own doors, within sight of his 
house, and he was shot by three of them 
at once, and from every one a mortal 
wound." All these things I might have 
seen from the round tower of the Pom- 
ham Club; but there was one thing about 
this "horrid and barbarous murder" of 
Hezekiah Willett, as the Reverend Hub- 
bard calls it, which the same pious chron- 
icler failed to mention ; and this it was, 
exactly one year to a day had passed since 
we shot Peebe. Hezekiah was shot on 
the first anniversary of the death of Peebe- 
We could not account for this unfortunate 
coincidence on any other theory than that 
Hezekiah's god was talking, or pursuing, 



or on a journey, or peradventure he 
slept, when Hezekiah went out. We are 
the more inclined to this belief for the 
reason that whenever we shot a few of 
the original owners of the soil, the pious 
Hubbard sajs "the Devil in whom they 
trusted deceived them." As the pious 
Hubbard hath it, "Except the Lord keep- 
eth the city the watchman watcheth in 
vain." And so indeed it was with the 
Willetts. 

It was midsummer's day, June 24, 1675, 
that I sat here in the Tower enjoying the 
cool breeze late in the afternoon. I had 
been to worship. A " day of solemn hu- 
miliation throughout the colony [had 
been appointed] for fasting and prayer, to 
intreat the Lord to give success to the 
present expedition respecting the enemy." 
So writes our godly chronicler. Our peo- 
ple were about to begin a war upon those 
whom they found in possession when we 
came here, and we wanted to make sure 
that God was on our side, so we put in 
this little preliminary meeting, The thing 



had been all arranged as we supposed, and 
the people had departed for their homes. 
Mine being the nearest, I had reached it 
first, and was seated in this tower as be- 
fore written, when, as I was looking land- 
ward towards Mattapoiset, the beautiful 
peninsular which you can see just there 
jutting out into the waters of Mount Hope 
bav, but much nearer, and in these very 
fields I saw a puff" of smoke, and heard 
the report of a rifle. A^notherand another 
followed until I had seen nine puffs, and 
heard the voices of nine rifles. The first 
blood in King Philip's Avar had been shed, 
and I had seen it from this tower of the 
Pomham Club. I looked towards our 
strong refuge, the house of our godly 
minister, Mr. Myles. I could see it 
plainly just here below us on the Sowams 
river. All was quiet there, and without 
doubt for a very good reason. We had 
built it for several purposes. It was a gar- 
rison house, a block house, a church, and 
a parsonage, all in one. From it we dis- 
patched our prayers and our bullets, both 



13 
at the same time ; and it became a matter 
of demonstration, that bullets propelled as 
ours Avere, by both praver and powder, be- 
catne exceedingly irritating to the skin of 
an Indian. It seems to me strange, now 
that I think of it, that notwithstanding 
our appeals before we begun an attack, 
nine of us should have been permitted to 
be shot dead on our way home from appeal- 
ing. Surely, we had no intention of shoot- 
ing any Indians for two or three davs. I 
have asked our godly minister, Mr. Myles, 
about it, and he says that he can't ex- 
plain it. 

It was but little more than a year from 
the day when I saw from this tower the 
first blood drawn in this terrible war, 
when 1 again stood here. It was in the 
early morning, Saturday, August 12, 1676, 
a Avet and lowering morning it was. The 
war was still progressing, and armed 
bands still prowled about the country. 
Was it that I imagined, or did I really see 
a slight cloud rise from the southwest 
foot of Mount Hope and float lazily away .^ 



14 
Whether I saw it or cnlj thought I saw 
it, it actually rose and floated away. It 
was the smoke of the musket discharged 
bj an Indian at King Philip, and him it 
killed. I had thus seen, from the tower 
of the Pomham Club, both the beginning 
and the end of King Philip's war. 

The old chroniclers thus quaintly put 
things concerning the shooting of this 
Indian sachem: "An Englishman and 
an Indian stood at such a place of the 
swamp where it hapned that Philip was 
breaking away; the morning being wet 
and rainy the Englishman's gun would 
not fire. The Indian having an old mus- 
ket with a large touchhole it took fire the 
more readily, with which Philip was dis- 
patched, the bullet passing directly through 
his heart, where Joab thrust his darts 
into the rebellious Absalom." Philip's 
head Avas cut oft' and given to the Indian 
who shot him, and by this Indian taken 
to Plymouth, where it was set upon a 
pole, and there it stood for twenty-five 
years, of w^hich thus writes the pious 



Mather : "Thus did God break the Head 
of the Leviathan, and give it to be meat 
to the people inhabiting the wilderness.'' 
Nearly a century elapsed before I again 
stood within the tower of the Pomham 
Club. Singularly enough, it was as be- 
fore, a midsummer day, or rather it was 
the evening of such a day, (the 9th of 
June, 1772,) that I saw two craft, one, a 
schooner, in chase of the other, a sloop. 
It was the British schooner Gaspce at- 
tempting to overhaul the New York packet 
Hannah^ then on her way to Providence. 
The Gaspee failed in her endeavor, and 
grounded firm and fast on Namquit Point, 
the long, low sandy land just across there 
in Pomham's country, Shawomet, but 
now it forms a part of the Spring Green 
Farm. Hard and fast there lay the Gaspee, 
and night descending — I slept, but scarcely 
had I slept when I was awakened by the 
wild shouting of men. Across the waters 
the shouts came in clear and distinct utter- 
ances. I could see nothing in the dark- 
ness ; presently all was again quiet ; a light 



i6 

became discernable. It was on board the 
Gaspee. Larger and larger it grew — the 
wild flames enveloped the hull, and leaped 
to the topmasts, the ship was on fire and 
burned to the water's edge. The Lieu- 
tenant, Dudingston, who commanded her 
was shot, but not killed, by a musket ball 
fired by Joseph Bucklin. In a boat I saw 
him from this tower carried just there to 
Pawtuxet. Even as I had seen from this 
tower the first blood drawn in Philip's 
war, so had I now seen from this same 
tower the first blood shed in the greater 
struggle, the war of the Revolution. 

It was only a year or two later, while 
sitting here one afternoon in May, 1776, 
that I saw two ships launched from the 
stocks. They were men of war. One 
the Warren of 32 guns, the other the Pro- 
vidence oi 28 guns. Both were taken to 
sea, under my own eyes, and through the 
British fleet then blockading. The War- 
ren sailed first, commanded by Captain 
John B. Hopkins. He got safely to sea. 
A little later Congress applied to Com- 



17 

niodore Whipple, Avho Avas in command 
of the Providence^ to know whether he 
could take his ship to sea. Whipple an- 
swered that he could. Dispatches were 
sent to him to be taken to France. The 
importance of these dispatches was clearly 
indicated when it became known that 
thej related to the treaty with France con- 
cerning the alliance. It was on a dark 
and stormy night in April that Whipple 
cleared his ship and set sail for France. 
The wind was blowing half a gale. In 
the darkness I saw him, phantom like, 
sail by — close under the rock Pomham 
he laid the course of his vessel. Short 
Avas the time he made to W^arwick, off 
which point lay the British frigate Lark. 
I had often seen her lying there beneath 
this tower, and now, while I could not see 
her, it being night, I could plainly hear 
her cannon as she gave the Providence a 
broadside as she passed. Commodore 
Whipple returned her salute, and crowded 
the ship with sails. This salute b3' Wliip- 
ple, the flash of which I saw and the roar 



i8 

of which I heard, killed and wounded 
twenty of his enemies. Further down 
the bay Whipple exchanged broadsides 
with the Jimo^ another British frii^ate, 
but stopping not, held swiftly on his 
course to the sea. Another ship impeded 
his progress — a broadside sunk her, and 
his course was open. Never man made 
-more adventurous voyage, nor one fraught 
with greater consequences to his country. 
I saw the beginnings of it from the tower 
of the Pomham Club. 

Thus has a mind in idleness wandered 
back, under the suggestion of a thought, 
among the days and the things which are 
gone. It was a thought begot by the 
scene and unthought before. 

There are many places of local histori- , 
cal interest in Rhode Island, around 
which cluster the memories of single ac- 
tions, but where can be found a spot 
within the State where one can gather be- 
neath a single glance, the fields of so 
many famous actions as in this tower of 
the Pomham Club.^ Like Kartaphilos, 



19 
I have traversed the centuries, and have 
gathered here and there an action ; but 
those untouched far outnumber those 
herein described. The gleaner has pre- 
ceded the harvester. Let some enthusi- 
astic member of the Club follow out the 
study for the regalement of himself and 
the delectation of his fellows. I came, 
did I say an unbidden guest.-* It is true, 
and yet it is not true. I cannot be a guest. 
I could be only a guest when the family 
were temporarily absent, and so indeed I 
was; and for it all I owe an apology to 
the Club for making tales about their 
domicil. 

THE PIPE OF P O M H A M . 

{Fi-om the Deed of 1642.) 




SACHEM OF J5HOWOMET. 






t^^ ^ LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

014 111 190 5 i 



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